Till Death do us Part
by PrettyArbitrary
Summary: Coldfire Trilogy: Forging his bond with the Hunter may be the worst memory of Damien Vryce's life. But how did it happen?


**Till Death do us Part**

A fan fiction about the Coldfire Trilogy, set during Black Sun Rising after the group arrived in the Rakhlands.  The Coldfire Trilogy was written by the spectacular Ms. C.S. Friedman, and I am receiving no money for this.  This story is dedicated to Karasu Tendo.  I've never met you, but your bio on your profile page inspired me to write this.  Cheers!

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The forging of the bond between himself and the undead adept Gerald Tarrant may be the worst memory of Damien Vryce's life.  Yet, no description of it is ever given.  What might have happened to leave such an impact on him?

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After their little talk, Tarrant rallied enough to manage on his own, perhaps bolstered by the promise of Damien's offering.  More likely, Damien thought, he just hated the thought of someone having to help him.  The fae's currents needed no more than a cursory reading to locate a cave about two miles along the shore, and the even weakened Hunter could go that far without collapsing.

They reached their destination after half an hour.  Outside the shelter, the little group began unpacking their supplies.  Senzei gathered driftwood for a small fire.  Damien instructed them to strip the horses of their gear and rub them down.  Before they could set watches, though, the Hunter walked over and stopped just far enough away to signal no intention of helping with chores.

"I need to speak with the priest."  He addressed Ciani and Senzei, but waved Damien toward the mouth of the cavern with a gesture so peremptory that, at any other time, Damien might have leapt at him in rage.  As it was, Tarrant stood arrogantly enough, but he looked so exhausted that he wasn't fooling anyone.  The adept turned his eyes to Ciani and continued, "We won't be long, but please don't interrupt us."  Puzzled, she nodded.

Damien took several steps past Tarrant, then turned to wait for him.  The priest didn't trust that the man could go ten more feet on his own.  As ever, however, Tarrant surprised him, brushing past with straight if unsteady steps.  Following, Damien cast a reassuring look over his shoulder at Zen and Ciani before the cavern's dark mouth swallowed him as well.

Inside, he had to pause and let his eyes adjust to the near-darkness.  After a moment, he picked out Gerald Tarrant leaning against the rough wall, his eyes fastened on the priest as he entered.  Damien tried to tell himself it was only the lack of light that made them look so black.  Still, the adept watched him so intensely that Damien found it difficult to look away.  He circled uneasily around the man, and sat on the sandy floor at his other side.

Tarrant slid down next to him with a rustle of cloth.  Startled, Damien looked at his companion.  The man's face was drawn and gaunt.  He'd gone so pale he seemed to glow in the dark.  "Can you manage?"

The Hunter offered a strained smile.  His face looked ready to crack from it.  "I'll have to, won't I?"  He closed his eyes for a moment, summoning energy.  "The first step will give me strength for the rest."  He opened his eyes and looked at Damien again.  This close, the priest had to shake off a sense of vertigo as Tarrant's eyes seemed to draw him in.  God, the man looked so hungry.  Damien shivered at the thought of that hunger focused on him.  What was he getting himself into?

The Hunter seemed to know his mind.  "Second thoughts, Vryce?"

Damien steadied himself and shook his head.  "No.  Just…getting ready."  He lied to bolster his own courage, he knew.  The idea of being bound to this man for the rest of his life was sinking in at exactly the wrong moment.  But he'd already made his decision, and would not turn back.

In a voice that seemed to crawl out of the darkness surrounding them, Tarrant replied, "I can smell your fear."  

Damien felt a chill twist down his spine, closed his eyes to avoid seeing the other man's expression.  He knew how unnerved he sounded when he asked, "Just…what do we do?"  _Please, let's just get this over with._

Tarrant nodded.  Damien felt him shift closer, felt the cold of the Hunter's skin almost touching his.  "I need your blood."  The adept reached into a fold of his garments and brought out a knife.  "The cut should be deep enough to bleed freely, but you don't need to really injure yourself.  Your arm would do nicely."  He held the knife out with a slightly trembling hand.  "I assume you would rather do it?"

Damien took the knife from his hand.  He rolled up his sleeve, laid the metal against the flesh of his forearm, then hesitated.  He felt the Hunter lean against him, eager for sustenance, and before he could lose his nerve Damien pressed down with the blade in a quick jerking motion.  The Hunter grasped his wounded arm, and Damien dropped the little knife as he flinched from the shocking cold.  In the ancient sorcerer's grip, the priest noticed that at least one of them was shaking.  His head spun so badly, he couldn't be sure if it was himself or Tarrant.  

The Hunter paused with his head bowed, his fingers digging into Damien's flesh while the undead adept fought for restraint.   Finally, his eyes flicked up to meet the priest's and he said, in a ruthlessly controlled tone, "This will be…unpleasant for both of us.  I need you not to fight me, you understand?  I don't have the strength to control myself and you."  Damien believed him.  He put his head back against the stone and nodded, his entire body going tense with the effort _not_ to fight as the Hunter raised Damien's arm, bent his head and put his mouth to the wound.

For the first frozen second, it wasn't too bad.  He merely had to deal with the horror of an undead sorcerer drinking blood from his body.  But in the next second, Damien realized why Tarrant had warned him not to fight.

Damien felt something begin to crawl into his veins, the Hunter's poisonous cold creeping into his wound as if it were a live thing.  The sensation reminded him of hideous things.  Damien gritted his teeth and tried to force back the images the power called to mind as it writhed inside him, remembering great worms wriggling out of the soil in the Forest, burying themselves in the dead horse's carcass…  Damien began to shudder uncontrollably, trying not to jerk his arm from the man's grasp.  

The power twisted through his limbs as if it swam in his bloodstream while the Hunter sucked and licked greedily at his wound.  Damien had to choke back on his instincts to tear his arm out of the Hunter's grip.  Tarrant's icy influence numbed his body as it spread through him, twitching slowly toward his heart.  The tormented priest tried hard not to wonder, could this kill him?  Tarrant had said he wouldn't do that, but what if he couldn't stop himself?  Damn it, the man hadn't asked for _trust!_

The ice reached Damien's heart.  For a moment, the two men felt their awareness shrink to encompass only one another.  Gerald Tarrant sensed only the person he now drew nourishment from.  Damien Vryce could feel nothing but the terrible cold that invaded his being, and the man whom it was part of.  As he lost sense of his own numbed body, his awareness of Tarrant grew, as if the frigid tendrils were actually extensions of the Hunter's own being plundering his.  Deep inside, Damien thought he felt something move.  Then everything twisted, as if he weren't perceiving with human senses anymore.  

For one drugged, eternal second, Damien could feel the Hunter's mind inside him.  The ice of the Hunter's nature, the slick foulness of the man's inner being slithered up and caressed the priest's soul.  It seared him from the core outward and erupted in a throat-wrenching scream that Damian somehow had just enough presence of mind to stifle by biting his own hand.  He only let a soft moan escape.

At the same time, Tarrant finally released the priest's wounded arm, letting it fall into his lap.  He sat not a foot away, staring into Damien's eyes, evaluating whatever he saw there.  Damien released an enormous sigh and leaned back, nearly collapsed, against the cavern wall behind him.  For a few moments, he couldn't summon up the ability to speak.  

Eventually, he looked at Tarrant.  "_Please_ tell me we're done."

The adept nodded.  Damien was perversely pleased to note that he looked somewhat shaken as well.  The man's voice, however, was completely smooth.  "We're done with this.  Only one more thing.  Tell Senzei and the lady not to wake you.  I need you to sleep till you wake naturally."

Damien nodded unsteadily.  "That shouldn't be hard."  He hesitated, then gathered himself to stand.  Uncertain how to react after that experience, he avoided the subject (and the Hunter's eyes) by binding his arm, then by looking around the cavern.  Then something caught his attention.  He turned back to Tarrant with a surprised expression.  "How long did that take?  It's still dark outside."

The adept glanced up, nodded again.  Wearily, he answered, "We've been here for perhaps ten minutes."  At the priest's incredulous glance, he replied, "I know.  It feels like hours."  He made to stand, and Damien automatically offered a hand up.  Tarrant took it, demonstrating his persisting exhaustion.  Damien thought he felt an odd tingle where their palms met, but perhaps it was his imagination.  "Time has little bearing on that sort of ordeal," the Hunter continued.  "Come.  We don't want the others to start wondering about us."

The two of them headed toward the mouth of the cave, but Damien stopped his companion with a touch on the shoulder.  Tarrant turned to regard him.

Damien began, "When you said this was potentially deadly for both of us, I thought you meant…"  He waved a hand vaguely, "…as a weapon.  If one of us used it."

Tarrant shook his head slowly.  "No, priest."  He looked away, and spoke quietly.  "The touch of your humanity is as much a threat to me as the touch of my soul is to you."  

Tarrant paused, and Damien thought he was finished, but then the other man turned back to meet his eyes. "For better or for worse, priest, we're both bound now."

As they walked back toward the little oasis of camp, Damien tried not to think about the meaning of those words.


End file.
